Citizen Detained Three Times, Immigration Shock!

Officer escorting handcuffed person down hallway.

A Florida-born U.S. citizen working construction in Alabama has been arrested by immigration agents three times in under a year — and a federal judge is now deciding whether to stop it from happening again.

Story Snapshot

Leonardo Garcia Venegas, born in Florida, was detained twice at Baldwin County, Alabama construction sites in May 2025 despite presenting a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license.
A class-action lawsuit filed September 30, 2025, names Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and top officials including Tom Homan and Kristi Noem as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges agents targeted Latino workers specifically, bypassing white and Black workers at the same sites without detaining them.
DHS disputes the narrative, claiming Venegas obstructed the lawful arrest of an undocumented alien during the first incident by physically placing himself between agents and their target.

Three Arrests, One American Citizen, Zero Convictions

Leonardo Garcia Venegas says he was tackled while filming immigration agents at a Baldwin County construction site in May 2025. [2] That was arrest number one. Two weeks later, agents showed up at a different private construction site, saw him working, and detained him again — this time, according to the lawsuit, without any reasonable suspicion beyond the fact that he was Latino and on a job site. [1] By the time a third arrest occurred, his attorneys had already filed a federal class-action lawsuit. A judge is now weighing whether to issue an injunction blocking further detentions.

The lawsuit, Venegas v. Homan, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama and assigned to Chief Judge Jeffrey U. Beaverstock, targets not just the agents involved but the policies behind the raids. [1] The complaint alleges that DHS’s “Gulf of America Task Force” authorizes warrantless sweeps of construction sites based on the broad assumption that Latino workers are likely undocumented — and that agents are trained to refuse valid identification, including REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses, as proof of citizenship. [1] That is not aggressive enforcement. That is a policy designed to produce wrongful arrests.

What the Lawsuit Actually Alleges Against Federal Policy

The legal claims span Fourth Amendment violations, false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, and battery. [1] The class-action framing is significant — Venegas is not just seeking relief for himself. His attorneys are arguing that the Gulf of America Task Force’s operational methods systematically expose U.S. citizens and lawful residents working in construction to unconstitutional detention based on ethnicity. The Institute for Justice has taken up the case, lending it serious legal firepower and credibility beyond a single plaintiff’s grievance. [6]

The complaint’s most damning language describes agents running “right past the white and Black workers without detaining them and went straight for the Latino workers.” [1] If that account holds up in discovery — through body camera footage, co-worker testimony, or the phone video Venegas allegedly captured before being tackled — it would represent a textbook Fourth Amendment violation. Reasonable suspicion cannot legally be anchored to race or ethnicity alone, and no court has ever held otherwise.

DHS Fires Back With an Obstruction Claim

The government’s position deserves a fair hearing. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated that during the first incident, Venegas “physically got in between agents and refused to comply,” framing his detention as a consequence of obstructing a lawful arrest of an undocumented individual — not racial profiling. [2] DHS also cited a reported 1,000 percent increase in assaults against ICE agents following a terrorist attack on ICE personnel in Dallas, arguing that media coverage of cases like Venegas’s was “shamefully peddling a false narrative” that endangers agents. [2]

That context matters, but it does not resolve the core legal question. Obstruction during a first encounter does not explain a second, independent arrest at a completely different job site two weeks later. [1] If agents had a legitimate obstruction case from the first incident, that case should have been prosecuted. Instead, Venegas was detained again — same profile, different location — which suggests the operative variable was not his behavior but his appearance. The DHS narrative addresses one arrest. The lawsuit covers three.

What Discovery Will Determine

The evidentiary gaps in this case are real and worth acknowledging. No birth certificate, passport, or corroborating witness statements have been publicly produced. [1] The video Venegas claims to have recorded during the first arrest has not surfaced in reported court filings. Body camera footage from ICE agents during Gulf of America Task Force operations — if it exists — has not been released. These are not reasons to dismiss the lawsuit. They are exactly what federal discovery is designed to uncover. The strength of this case will be determined by what Judge Beaverstock sees, not what either side tells the press.

What is already established without dispute: a man claiming U.S. citizenship was detained three times in under twelve months while working construction in Alabama. He presented government-issued identification. He was detained anyway. Whether that reflects rogue agents, flawed policy, or something in between, a federal court is now the right place to find out — and the answer will have consequences well beyond one construction worker in Baldwin County.